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WRITING IN THE FIELD

April 9, 2018
spods

Much of Rodriguez’s poems occur on the bridge between spaces, people, and culture. In his poems, Rodriguez bridges language. He mixes English with Spanish: “wanted to be buried / with Sinaloenses / dancing on his grave / to the tune of / ‘La Ultima Paranda.'” He creates spaces to connect people (“Witnesses, looking like sad paintings, / sit in pews of swirled wood. / Policeman laugh in the hallways . / For months I visited these marble corridors”) from different walks of life. He finds the boundaries of his own city, “across the LA river / concrete border / of scrawled walls.” Boundaries aren’t the nepantla, they are the space.